


BINGO!

by NicoleP



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, a crack fic idea that turned into a serious story, includes a couple deceptions of near catastrophe things but nothing too bad, it was just intended to be a funny one off thing, it's really a bit of a cruel game and it's very much at wilson's expense, like don't do this stuff, most of the characters are in this really some just don't play too much of a big role, mourning the loss of loved ones, seriously he's a mess, the constant is shitty and wilson has no sense of self preservation, warnings and relationship tags might change, way too much deep contemplation, wilson and winona have a sibling like relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 20:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19775935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NicoleP/pseuds/NicoleP
Summary: The constant was at times a painfully monotonous place as Winona had come to find it. Everyone had their chores and responsibilities to keep the camp running, it reminded her of the cogs in a machine or of what it was like working on the assembly belt. Everyone had their roles and did their part day in and day out, it worked by all means, but it was oh so dull. Everything was expected and planned for. Eventually even the seasonal onslaughts by the giants had become routine. No, the constant really was a tediously boring place, and as such it was only natural that they would try to find ways to entertain their free hours.





	1. trees cannot be a comfortable place to sleep in

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fic was based off the idea that Wilson will sleep anywhere and everywhere and the others turning it into a scavenger hunt/bingo game, it was never intended to be this long and serious, some friends told me to write it and suddenly my planned 1 page fic turned into 14 and counting because i don't know how to get to the point, as such the pacing is not perfect but it's good enough. I was planning to finish it before posting but have needed motivation to keep going so here we are. Enjoy.

Lately Winona and Wilson had been spending a lot of time working together. When she arrived at the campsite she had found him working tirelessly at finding a way out of the place they were in, and after looking over his blueprints she had come to the conclusion that he did have a good head on his shoulders, but good lord his mechanical knowledge was… lacking… to say the least. It took her awhile since saying that he was proud and protective of his work would be the understatement of the century, but she managed to convince him to let her look them over and correct things were she could. She enjoyed it, as he opened up and became more comfortable with her presence he turned out to not be as prude as she originally took him for, he was even amusing to spend time with and they’d talk about science and tech stuff during the evening hours when everyone was winding down and coming together around the campfire to eat. One thing she discovered about him though was that when he set his mind to something he would work at it until he either made it work or until he personally broke down and couldn’t keep going. 

This was one of those times.

It started one day when he came running to where she was trying to catch rabbits to tell her about his newest idea, chasing off her prey in the process; not that he noticed though as he was practically bouncing where he stood gripping a number of wrinkly blueprints. He shoved them towards her not caring that she was holding a nearly finished net she had been weaving for another trap. She blinked and scrambled to try to keep it all from falling down, turning the pages so she could read them. His writing started of neat and proper, there were small notes and crude drawings here and there describing his ideas, but as she kept going it became messier and messier, words had been crossed out and his paragraphs were wobbly. She struggled reading it all and Wilson was clearly getting impatient where he stood waiting for her to finish but eventually she got to the last page, the ink of the last paragraph was severely smudged but she made it out to say “ _ could this be what we’ve missed all along? _ ”

She took a moment to take it all in, his ideas were interesting but almost absurd in nature, she had told him as much, they were wildly improbable, and it touched on things neither of them were knowledgeable about. His face dropped, but only a bit, as he brushed her off.

“But what if!” he had told her “what if it works! Just imagine it! I looked over our last trials and we’ve been overlooking this all along! It might be improbable but this whole place existing is improbable. Everything we have gone through is improbable.  _ We  _ are improbable miss Winona! Improbability means nothing here, I really truly believe that we can do this, will you just help me please?” 

She had taken a moment to think about it, looking down at the papers again, his ideas were insane, were they insane enough to work? He had been so excited and she had always had a soft spot for people being passionate about what they worked on. He did have a point, they hadn’t thought about this, if it worked it could produce examples of her wildest imaginations. It would take a long time, and they’d have to run countless tests, but they did have literally have an eternity to figure it out, right?

_ At least that was how she had seen it. _

Since then Wilson had been rushing his daily tasks so as to get to work faster, he tried to convince her to do the same once or twice but she just told him never to rush a job, he had stopped asking after that but he pounced her as soon as she finished every day, dragging her over to their corner of the camp. He worked incessantly, and as time went on and they got deeper into figuring everything out she noticed that he started to neglect his own wellbeing. He only ate when they shoved food at him, he stopped caring about his image and he’d work long into the evening, no longer going with Winona when she left to sit with the others. Most nights he was still working when she retired for the night, and sometimes she found him standing in the same spot when she left her tent in the morning, with deep dark circles molded under his eyes. 

  
  


“That bad, huh?” Willow said from where she was sitting poking at the firepit, pulling Winona’s attention away from staring at Wilson frustratingly tearing apart one of their failed attempts. “His hair is a mess, i don’t know when i last saw him brushing it. He’s really committed to whatever the hell you guys are up to”

“Does he usually get like this?” Winona might not have been in the camp for too long but she remembers Wilson telling her that Willow had been among the first he met here, they were normally together a lot in the morning and evening hours before they parted ways for work, there was something about her careless blunt nature that Wilson needed Winona thought, she pulled him down to earth like she couldn’t, and she could distract him from his work when she wanted to, which god knows he needed at times. Wilson and Willow were friends, real friends, she should know right?

“Only when he nerds out real hard, he loves that science mumbo jumbo, i think that stuff is all just for losers, don’t you bernie?” she made a motion to make the old teddy bear of hers nod in response to her, she went back to poking at the fire.

“Seriously though, he’ll be fine, he just does this at times, we’ve all just come to the conclusion it’s best to let him be a while ago since trying to stop him turned out to be… not pretty… dude didn’t speak to anyone for weeks after how ashamed he was over bursting out like that. Trust me, he’ll just tire himself out.”

He had gone back to scribbling on his papers by now, only stopping to take a bite out of the sandwich the mime had brought him earlier. Winona sighed, she’d seen people get like this before, hell she’d had moments like this herself in her younger days, she knew of wild determination and how everything else just stopped mattering, and she knew about lashing out at well meaning people who were worried about her. 

“Alright… thanks Willow” all she could do was drop it, Willow was right, he was already clearly tired, eventually he’d just have to slow his pace down. Maybe he’d realize it wouldn’t work out.

She felt a tug at her sleeve, looking over to see the spider kid proudly showing of a spool of silk they had woven into fine string, it glistened pearlescent and almost looked golden in the red light of the fire pit.

“Look! Look how far i’ve gotten! Wendy mentioned that she and Abby used to embroider, do you think she’ll like it?” 

Winona smiled at them and ruffled the hairs on their head.

“I’m sure she’s going to love it kiddo” the kid grinned wide, showing off their fangs, they sat and talked through the evening until the librarian made them and the other kid go to bed, which is when she went back to talking with Willow, the other residents of the camp happily shiming in when they arrived at the site, they sat like that long into the night, merrily discussing everything and nothing. Wilson joined them too after a while, zombie-like he sat down next to Willow on the ground without uttering a word, promptly falling asleep leaned against her shoulder to the crackle of the fire.

  
  


The next morning was a slow one, as summer was slowly creeping in it had become warmer, not unbearable yet, just nice, this particular day was especially nice. They all sat together around the slowly dying fire eating their breakfast, everyone but Willow engaging in smalltalk about how nice of a day it was, talking about plans for the day and what they’d do when they had free time. 

“Nice?! It’s not a nice day at all, Wicker won’t let me rekindle the fire,  _ too warm  _ she said,  _ a waste of resources,  _ bahh” Willow grumbled as she poked the dying embers with her bare finger, Winona never stopped being as impressed over that, she really had found herself an odd bunch. The librarian shook her head from where she was standing closeby, crouching over one of the chests and going over the camps resources, not even looking over her shoulder as she said “I told you, you can have a fire at nightime dear, not everyone here possesses your ability to handle the heat” 

“But what about nooow?!”

Wickerbottom didn’t answer her, they’d had this discussion countless times before, she instead went back to going through the contents of the next chest.

“Hmm we could need some more -” the old lady cut herself off right before saying it, her squinted eyes growing wide, but it was already too late, Willow had seen the sign by the chest she was standing over already.

“Charcoal?! I can go get us some!” 

_ Oh dear.  _

Wickerbottom just looked at Willow grinning at her in horror, doubtlessly thinking about all the things that could go wrong, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to talk her down, Willow had gotten her hopes up, and that was a truly dangerous thing. She was quiet for a long time before turning to Winona.

“What do you have to do today dear? Would you mind going with miss Willow to gather charcoal? Just to make sure she doesn’t burn down any important… trees....” by  _ any important trees  _ she meant any trees that might be too close to camp or anything else flammable and might catch it all aflame, Winona didn’t have much to do for the day anyways, she was just going to finish up on repairing the walls and then end it early to help Wilson for the day, but she had yet to see him around for the entire morning anyways, he hadn’t slept for days before today, he probably needed the sleep. Hey, maybe he had even realized he couldn’t keep going like that. It shouldn’t take too long anyways, she’d likely be back before he even woke up.

“Yea sure i’ll come with” Wickerbottom looked relieved, giving her a thankful smile before turning back to Willow “alright dearie, do you have your lighter?” Willow scrambled to pull it out of her pocket, holding it up and flicking the arm to show that it worked to the librarian, clearly excited that she’d get to burn down a plot of trees 

“Great, now give that to miss Winona” Willow’s face fell, she clutched the lighter to her chest “What?! Why?!”

“You get to go on the condition that miss Winona gets to hang on to the lighter until she’s found a plot of trees she judges adequate” 

Willow stared at Winona offendedly, but after a while she seemed to judge it a fair enough price to pay and she reluctantly handed over the old lift arm lighter. “Lose it and you’ll regret it”

And so, they were off.

  
  


They took one of the roads that crossed near camp to a small patch of trees that Winona walked by sometimes on her way to gather supplies, it wasn’t perfect, but they’d brought axes and a shovel and she was convinced she could make it work well enough for the purpose. Willow happily skipped after her, it was impressive how quickly her mood had lifted from the morning after hearing she’d be allowed to light stuff on fire without getting in trouble. Winona gripped the lighter a little tighter, thinking about how much her life had changed since she arrived here, how much all of their lives had must have changed. Most of them never talked about life before the constant, it was painful to remember, and maybe a bit embarrassing. The old librarian had explained it all to her after she’d asked once and been met with silence. Tricked, most of them, some stolen away, some came on their own accord, those were the minority. But one thing they all had in common, all but her,  _ Maxy _ .

Winona had been disappointed when she learnt Maxwell was alive but wouldn’t answer any of her questions, he just grew quiet and distant when she even as much as uttered her sister’s name, she knew he was hiding something, if only he would talk. She’d bug the old guy about it again if it weren’t so much of a hassle to get to him where he had his camp on the other side of the island, only ever coming over when he needed something or when the time came to take on the deerclops or bearger, and even then he’d slip away as soon as it was done.

She looked over the field they had arrived at, there were a number of full grown birchnut trees planted in neat lines, no doubt by Woodie who then promptly forgot about them soon after. As expected they’d need to chop down a couple trees that were connecting to the rest of the trees on the field, but nothing too bad.

“This is it. Could you hand me one of the axes? We need to take out those two trees on that side there and this one closest to you before burning anything and then you can have your lighter back” Winona said, carefully pointing out the trees in question, Willow nodded cheerfully and handed her one of the axes before grasping her own and they got to work, it went by quick enough, they chopped up the trees for firewood, gathered the birchnuts off the ground and made sure to dig up the stumps when they were done. Winona walked around the trees a final time just to completely sure nothing that could accidentally catch on fire was in range, and when she judged it as safe she held out the lighter to the excited Willow.

“Really? I can burn it now?” when Winona nodded she practically jumped towards the trees, she took a moment to judge the best one to start with, leaning down towards the base of it when she did. Winona took a step back, watching the woman pry up a strip of the thin, flexible bark slightly and hold the lighter to it. It smoldered for a bit before slowly catching on fire, picking up speed and quickly spreading to the trunk. She looked up satisfied with her work, then she screamed, falling over backwards.

Winona froze as she heard a loud crash from within the trees, she watched as Willow jumped to her feet faster than she could even process, and then she saw her struggling to drag something out from the middle of the trees. A dark form, clutching it’s head groaning in pain.

_ OH GOD  _

She ran in there, grabbing Wilson’s other arm, and helped Willow drag him from out of the tangle of branches he had taken down with him when he fell from the tree. He was hardly even properly awake but clearly shaken up. They got him out to safety before the trees had caught on fire properly, then they just dropped him on the grass.

Winona had to take a moment to process what had just gone down before her, Willow was kneeled in front of the scientist, shaking in what Winona guessed to be a mix of shock and anger, she didn’t talk, but when the scientist propped himself up on his elbow and looked up at Willow her temper broke, slapping his face hard.

“YOU COMPLETE AND UTTER FUCKING DUMBASS”

He put his hand to his burning cheek, blinking away the sudden pain before sitting up properly. Just as he did she got up and stomped off towards the trees, walking right into the bunch and sitting down in the middle turned away from Wilson and Winona.

Something seemed to finally click in Wilson’s mind as he watched the red flames rising to the sky, his jaw dropped, staring in shock for a long time.

“Oh good god…” 

They just stood like that for what felt like an eternity, just watching the flames, and Willow’s heaving form in the middle of them, unreachable from the world. Winona sighed and turned towards where Wilson was still sitting on the ground, after getting a confirmation that he was alright she handed him her walking cane.

“I don’t think she’ll want you here when the trees stop burning” he looked at it, clearly torn, she could see he wanted to stay, to try to make it up to her, but he also knew that she was right. He grabbed it with a still shaking hand and made his way back to the camp without another word.

Willow didn’t get up from the ground until the trees had burned down properly and any remainder of the fire gone out. She didn’t look at Winona, her face was stoic, any remainder of tears evaporated by the heat, she looked like nothing happened as she leaned down in a swift motion, picking up her dropped axe and began chopping. Winona took the cue and did the same, they made quick work of it, then they gathered all the charcoal and stashed it away in Willow’s backpack.

They walked back at a slow pace, weighed down both by their newly gathered resources and the gravity of the situation. Willow didn’t ask where Winona’s walking cane had gone, she had the feeling she knew, but she was polite enough to leave her own hanging off her backpack and walking at a normal pace alongside her.

After a while Willow began to laugh, it was a breathless hysterical laughter, she had to stop her walking and grab onto Winona’s arm so as not to fall to the ground. Winona just stood there with her, stroked her back rhythmically when the laugh slowly turned into quick heavy breathing and Willow teared up. And she held her as Willow began to hyperventilate on the ground. And then they just stayed like that for a long time, not saying a word, just holding each other and staring out into the sea.


	2. let the best person win

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The actual idea of making it a game of bingo finally comes up.

Wilson was back to working when they arrived at camp, first noticing them when Willow walked past him to the chests in order to put their bounty away, he was about to call after her but changed his mind when she clearly ignored his presence, his gaze following her for a long time before turning towards Winona.

“She hates me” he said as he handed back her walking cane, his voice was uneven, there was something about the way he said it, he was certain about it, dooming himself to having lost his best friend just like that.

“She doesn’t hate you, she just needs a moment to process everything, she’ll be back to normal soon enough, Willow is a reasonable person, you didn’t really do anything wrong in the first place”  _ i think she’s angry at herself _ , that last part Winona couldn’t say, it wasn’t place to judge the situation, and it would probably just make Wilson feel worse. She decided to change the topic instead “So… why were you sleeping in a tree anyways?” 

Wilson’s face turned slightly red, he looked back at where they had set up their workstation and Winona noticed just how tired he really looked.

“I… i had hoped to finish everything Wickerbottom gave me to do for the day so that i could come home and continue on my work early… and i did! But i found myself exhausted from the work, i was away from camp, and it was quiet and it looked… cozy…” his gaze was fixated down, by now the blush of his cheeks had began to spread towards his ears. Winona sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“God beanpole, for a scientist you really are an idiot at times” she truly felt like an older sister to these people at times like these. They reminded her so much of Charlie sometimes...

“Move over, i’ll look over your plans for you”

  
  


Winona had been right, Willow was back to her normal self soon enough, laughing about the absurdity of the situation, she was talking to Wilson again too, brushing him off every time he tried to speak about what happened, she didn’t want to think of it. Wilson was clearly distraught about that, but he took it. He had calmed his pace for a bit after they had gotten back to camp that day, but he was now back to it worse than ever, and he was clearly thankful to have a shoulder to sleep on when he got frustrated in the evenings and stumbled over to them. It got even worse for every day that it went on. Eventually anyone trying to converse with him would mostly just be met by groans or slurred speech before he ultimately zoned off, he spent more time working, until eventually he stopped performing his tasks around the camp almost entirely. His handwriting had become near illegible and his mistakes more frequent. He’d get frustrated when she pointed them out to him, once tearing up a whole bunch of blueprints, good ones included. She’d sent him to nap as he began sobbing over what he had just done so that she could rewrite them for him. The nap ultimately didn’t help much at all since he soon was back, mood spiked rambling about how he figured it out and  _ it would work this time!  _ And telling her he didn’t need any more sleep when she tried to send him back into his tent.

That evening as people started to retire to the center of the camp Winona walked up to the old librarian briskly, things couldn’t keep on like this.

“Miss Wickerbottom? Do you have a moment?” the old lady raised her pointer finger at her, an indicator for her to  _ wait just a second _ as she finished reading a passage, then she neatly put a bookmark where she had been and and closed it, finally looking up at Winona where she stood towering over her.

“Is it about the young mister Higgsbury? Because if so i do fear you’ll need more than a moment of my time, come sit by me dear, me and the children made a batch of pumpkin biscuits earlier”

She offered her a cookie as soon as Winona had sat down, she happily took it and thanked her, taking small bites every now and then as she sat silent, wondering where to start, in the end she didn’t have to, Wickerbottom already knew what she was going to say.

“I am worried about him as well dear. I knew you’d approach me about this sooner or later as i am aware that it must look like we aren’t doing anything to help him, the truth is, we are doing everything we can at the present time. One thing you need to understand it that we have gone through this process more than once and we’ve tried everything, should you try to you’ll only find you won’t be able to talk him out of it, and taking away his work would be catastrophic. There’s something driving the young man forward, his work consumes him, and he needs to be the one to tire from what he set his mind to on his own so as to be truly free from it. And while he is keeping busy we do everything we can to help him, you may have noticed he hasn’t really had much extra work the last 3 days, that is because i stopped assigning him any more difficult tasks as soon as i judged him being unfit to perform them, we keep him out of harm's way and make sure he eats daily and sleeps as much as we can, and we try to distract him whenever we can to give him a break from it” 

Winona kept eating her cookie as she listened, watching Wilson from afar, she hadn’t noticed until now but she wasn’t the only one watching him, Woodie sat on the opposite side of the fire, absentmindedly whittling a piece of wood with skilled fingers, axe over his lap, eyes following Wilson’s movements. And then she saw the warrior woman gleefully stomping towards him, making the poor man jump as smacked him in the arm as a hello before giving him a big plate of freshly made meatballs. He looked up to thank her and taking a bite before going back to reading over his papers for the 20th time that day.

“... thank you mrs.Wickerbottom, that makes me feel a lot better” she said, the librarian gave her a sad smile, knowing it wasn’t the answer Winona had hoped for.

“Hey whatcha talking about?” Willow blurted, inserting herself into the conversation as she came up from behind were they were sitting, walking around the tree stump and plopping down before the unlit fire pit, logs in arm. Wigfrid joined them as well after leaving Wilson to do his, sitting down in the space next to Winona, giving her a warm embrace and a _ hellö _ .

They sat and talked for a long time, the conversation quickly drifted away from Wilson and became more lighthearted, and eventually they just listened to Wigfrid telling them stories of grand plays she had performed “ _ back then _ ”. Webber came out to sit with them as well, dragging Wendy with him by the arm, ghost mindlessly drifting behind them giving off the occasional whispering sound. It was nice, truly nice. It was at times like this were Winona often forgot about their whole situation completely, a wave of guilt did eventually catch up to her though as she suddenly remembered where they were, and how she had yet to find a way to free her sister, and of all the friends she had left behind coming here, for a moment she wondered what they must be thinking, did they assume her dead like most of the other people here? 

Luckily she was quickly interrupted from going down that rabbit hole any further when Willow huffed and fell over backwards on the ground, upper body laying halfway in the fire.

“I’m booorrreeeddd” she announced to the group, and everyone else in a close proximity to camp really since she was far from a quiet person.

“We could play a game miss Willow!” Webber jumped up to his feet, ready to run and get all the makeshift board games Woodie had made for them over the years.

“Noo i want to play something new, something we haven’t done before” she grew quiet again, sitting up slightly as she tried to think about what would make a good game to play. Right then they heard a crash and looked over to see Wilson trying to scramble to his feet after having fallen asleep on the table and slipping off, he was repeating that he was okay, trying to get all his papers back where they were.

“That man really can sleep wherever, someone ought to make a game out of THAT” Willow said, not even trying to hide the fact that she was laughing at him.

“What? Like,  _ whö can sleep in the weirdest places? _ , i think öur dear Wilsön still has us beat”

“No! Like,  _ find all the weird places Wilson can sleep in _ , uhh like, everyone would try to find as many weird places they can find him falling asleep in and write them down, like… bingo? First person to get 4 in a row wins!” Wicker looked at her almost mortified.

“That’s not at all how you pl-” she was interrupted by Webber excitedly jumping up and down, yelling “BINGO SCAVENGER HUNT!”

“It DÖES söund like it cöuld be fun”

“Count me and Lucy in” Woodie chimed in from his side of the fire, Willow just smiled triumphantly.

They spent the rest of the evening deciding on a list of places for their “ _ bingo scavenger hunt _ ”, Willow snuck over to where Wilson was still focused on his stuff and stole some of the empty pages of papyrus and his feather pen. Wickerbottom reluctantly chimed in as well if only to make sure they don’t slander the good name of bingo too much, and so they wrote everyone a card. Webber took one for himself and Wendy as soon as they were done, saying how they would win it together. Winona looked at the card in her hand, 22 prompts, 2 blanks for you to “ _ write your own _ ” and a free space in the middle. Some of the things on it seemed truly ridiculous, she wondered how even Wilson would achieve them and came to the conclusion they were probably put in as jokes. She also noticed that one of the options Willow had put on them was “ _ IN A TREE _ ” and she had smuggly crossed it off both of their cards before handing Winona hers. They all laughed about the game for the last hour before darkness hit, setting some final rules and then calling it a night.

And so, the game was afoot.


	3. a little bit of homesickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The constant sucks

It took a couple of days before anyone was able to cross something off their cards, Winona mostly forgot about it and kept working as normal. Making sure the ice flingomatic worked like they were supposed to before summer hit them. In her spare time she worked with Wilson, sitting with him to go over blueprints, finding issues in their plans. She wasn’t reminded of their bingo game until one day when she had just arrived at camp for the evening Wes tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Winona didn’t interact with the mime too much, mostly because of the language barrier. She only knew limited American sign from before and he was still working on figuring out how to translate his French sign over to it so when Woodie wasn’t there to help out the two mostly conversed in Winona trying to interpret his charades.

“Ah! Wes! How are you?” she greeted him, giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder, he signed back the word  _ good _ , one of the few they both knew, then he took out his own bingo card, pointing at it, and then towards the area where they had set up the camps machinery, Winona notices a pair of black, low heeled boots sticking out from under the alchemy engine.  _ Huh. _

Taking out her own card she noticed the square saying “ _ ON/IN/UNDER SOME KIND OF MACHINERY AT CAMP _ ” Wes held out a feather pen for her, she took it and quickly crossed it off. She thanked Wes and he left to go get something to eat.

The two crossed out squares on her card weren’t connected at all, but it was still entertaining to see that perhaps some of them would end up getting filled out after all, chuckling at the thought she went to grab Wilson’s blanket from his tent, doing the best she could to throw it over him while maneuvering around the structure he must have been trying to repair, then she just left him there. It may not be comfortable, but it was better than nothing.

  
  


Winona learned it was easiest to get Wilson to take breaks when things were working out on the plans they were refining and when the man had already gotten some sleep. This was one of those nights, Wilson still looked tired, but he was approachable, cheerful even, as he agreed to go with Winona and sit with the others. It was already pretty late so most anyone that would be spending the night at camp was there. Willow was sitting at her usual spot halfway into the fire pit poking at it absentmindedly while talking with Wigfrid about wild fairytales they’d heard over the years. Woodie and Wes were sitting on the other side of the fire, Woodie talking in rapid French and Wes answering just as fast in sign, Wolfgang was sitting nearby them too, struggling to keep up with his broken french and having to wait for Woodie to translate for Wes but they seemed to be managing alright. Webber was sitting on his own away from the others, still working on finishing up the thread he was working on, when they approached his eyes lit up.

“MR WILSON!” he got up, carefully placing down the spool before running over to hug Wilson’s leg, Wilson smiled widely and leaned down so that the kid could hug him properly, upon noticing Winona standing behind them he let go and hugged her too before dragging the two to sit with him by the fire.

“Look! Look! I’ve gotten so much further since last time mr Wilson! I’m nearly done with it now, i just need to finish up the end of it. It has been hard to work on it without Wendy seeing, i really hope she’ll like it!” they kept talking, Wilson smiled at him and did his best to listen attentively, Winona let them, just sitting nearby, answering whenever Webber turned to her, otherwise she just watched, Wilson really was good with the kid, he looked at peace, as if he had found his place in this weird world. She wondered if he might have younger siblings himself, or maybe even a kid he took care of. If so they must really be missing him…

No one should lose a family member, ever.

She fought the urge to ask him, it was an unspoken rule not to ask anyone else about the lives they lost here, it was too painful for most of them to talk about, if someone wanted to share something it would be them bringing it up, not that it happened all that often. It was strange really, living with these people for what must have been years and not even knowing some of their full names, or where they come from, or even _when_ they come from. Their whole friendship was based around this hell they had in common, if they ever got out would they even talk anymore? And about what? After “ _remember what we went through?_ ” Ran dry would there be anything left? Or would they get closer than ever, and bond for real? What would the world they’d return to even look like? She had heard Maxwell saying that time moves differently here, it could have been a year or a century since she got pulled through the door, and there was no way for her to know.

She thought of Genny, would she still be there if she ever got out? had she moved on? Perhaps she had found someone society didn’t force her to hide away behind closed doors, or maybe society had moved on. Maybe she even had a family, she always had wanted one, and a small farm in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields and the hum of bees and the scent of flowers in the warm breeze. Winona really hoped she was happy.

“Miss Winona? Are you crying?”

She looked up at the young girl standing before her, empty expression, holding her flower gently in her palms. Winona hadn’t even realized she had teared up before Wendy mentioned it, she hurried to look away trying to dry them off with her sleeve, in doing so noticing that Wilson and Webber no longer sat by her, Wilson must have gone to put him to bed. How long had it been? She felt incredibly silly.

“I’m alright kiddo, don’t worry about me” was she? She didn’t even know for sure, the look on Wendy’s face told her she likely knew that Winona was just saying that as well, but she thankfully didn’t push it, sitting down next to her instead and staring into the flames.

She knew she should probably send Wendy to bed as well, but she couldn’t bring herself to talk, the world seemed to have gone quieter, the distant talk of her friends sounded almost muffled, all she could hear was the occasional crackle from the fire, and then a heavy sigh, she felt a weight against her side, it took her a moment to realize that Wendy had leaned against her, flower still in hand. 

“I miss her so much”

Her heart sank, she didn’t know how to respond, or if she should respond, she wanted to tell Wendy everything, how she knew exactly what Wendy was going through, how she knew what it was like to stay up long nights, to feel nothing and knowing you should be crying your eyes out for the longest time as it has yet to sink in, to feel like you’ve lost part of yourself with them, and of the blame you put on yourself, knowing you should have  _ been there _ , done SOMETHING, anything, to save them, but Winona also knew it would not be what Wendy needed to hear, she shouldn’t unwind upon a mourning kid, so she did what she used to do for Charlie when she came to her crying.

She freed her arm and put it around her, stroking her back.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh also a dear friend of mine wrote their own short chapter around the "wilson sleeping in a tree" prompt a while ago, please check out stabbsworth, it's much more too the point and it's honestly really sweet.


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